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Valrhona "Chuao" (was Criollo cocoa powder?)
at Tue, 27 Apr 2004 20:18:18 GMT in
>, (JMF) wrote :
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Alex Rast" >
>Newsgroups: rec.food.chocolate
>Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2004 9:02 PM
>
>> >I live in Pisa...I've been wanting to go visit Amedei for a while,
>> >but I realize now
>> >that I've got to be better prepared than this. Anybody want to say a
>> >few words about their various lines and what I should look out for
>> >when I go there?
....
>
>> As for the chocolate,... Of course start with Chuao and buy as much as
you can afford.
>
>I'm trying to remember what the Chuao bar I bought in Pisa in the cafe'
>cost. I think it was 4 Euros.
That sounds about right. In the US, the bars cost around $8.00. When you
factor in the import costs, 4 Euros is where I'd expect it to be.
>> Now, the Porcelana isn't IMHO as good as the Chuao, nor is it as good
>> as its rival Porcelana from Domori, but it's still worth trying. What
>> I would do is buy a Porcelana bar, and buy one from Domori. Then, get
>> some polenta meal and make a very, very watery, absolutely plain
>> polenta - this means just the corn and water. It should flow - like
>> the consistency of gruel. You don't need much, just a mugful. Then try
>> the Amedei and Domori Porcelanas side-by-side. What you do is taste
>> one bar, drink some of the warm polenta, then taste the other bar.
>
>That's amazing! I have never, ever heard of the "polenta" technique for
>chocolate tasting comparisons. Well, I'll give it a try - it certainly
>isn't difficult to get ahold of the polenta here.
This is the old Mexican method. It's common in Mexico (and it was ever
since the days of the Aztecs, to serve chocolate with "atole" - which is
exactly what I've just described, namely, warm, gruel-like coarse cornmeal.
There simply is no more effective way completely to wipe out the taste of
one chocolate from your mouth, so that you can taste the next one totally
unencumbered by lingering flavours from the last one you tried. As usual,
the natives had it figured out long ago - they had years to experiment and
no doubt found out what worked over the centuries.
>>> It's best to eat the entire 50g
>> before proceeding to the second bar because there are flavour nuances
>> you won't catch unless you eat a relatively large amount.
>
>That is another thing that I didn't know at all: that there could be
>nuances you'd only get through a *larger* amount. I would have thought
>that anything more than a small amount would start to bury the nuances.
>Glad to hear it, though.
This is why I always consider sample tasting squares to be silly. You
achieve nothing - you can't get enough of the one chocolate to make a fair
assessment. Part of the reason is that you need a certain size to ensure
that your mouth is completely coated in the chocolate, thus that both the
tastebuds and nasal passages get the full impact. The other part is that
chocolate starts to dissolve fairly quickly, and without enough, the
aftertastes don't show up because there's never enough chocolate in the
mouth to notice them. Since the flavours develop slowly, you need a large
amount in the mouth for a relatively long time in order to sense them all.
>> Incidentally, I must
>> add that Amedei has determined the *perfect* size and shape for a
>> tasting bar - i.e. the 50g bars, rather long, narrow, and thick, but
>> not chunky.
>
>Yet another thing I hadn't thought about - 50 g. bars as the ideal size.
>I do remember noticing the unusual dimensions in the bar - and yes, in
>fact it did make a convenient size and amount for tasting, now that I
>think about it.
It would seem as though a lot of manufacturers have caught on - a lot of
bars are now coming out in 50g sizes. However, Amedei is the only one who
has also figured out the correct dimensional proportions. You see a lot of
bars coming out in flattish squares (too wide, awkward to bite into), very
long, thin wands (hard to get enough into the mouth at once, or too thick),
and blocky cubes (too rigid to bite). I give Amedei a lot of credit for
their persistence in finding the perfect mould.
--
Alex Rast
(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)
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